Matt Damon On ‘Bourne Legacy’ & the Future of the Bourne Franchise

Fans of the Bourne franchise are looking forward to seeing what Jeremy Renner brings to the gritty world of assassins, spies and government cover-ups in The Bourne Legacy this summer. With franchise scribe Tony Gilroy at the helm, most feel confident that the film will, at the very least, stay true to the tone that Bourne Identity director Doug Liman, Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass and Jason Bourne himself, Matt Damon, established in the first three films.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Damon at Comic-Con 2012 to talk about Elysium, his upcoming science fiction movie with Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9 (stay tuned for the full interview in the coming days). During the course of our discussion, we touched upon the Bourne franchise, his hopes for Bourne Legacy, and what his involvement may be in the future of the franchise.

“You know, if they had a script, I mean I’d love it. Paul and I have talked about doing another one for years. We’ve been kind of dancing around it. We just never could find a story that we felt was good enough. And if we could, then we’d do it, and we’d do it in a second. We love the character, we love the world and I’d love to do it. But it’s always been…We don’t want to get into it like ‘Oh, you guys’ll figure it out,’ because then it just means years off of our lives. And the last movie was really, really tough. We had no script and we were making the movie for a release date on the fly. And at that budget it was really terrifying and stressful and there’s no reason to do that.

If there is a great movie to be made, then we can figure it out beforehand and then go make it, the way you always do. You know what I mean? But nobody’s ever come forward with that script, so we’ll see. I mean I want to do it, but we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. I bet this one’ll be a big hit, though.”

Do you mean The Bourne Legacy?

“This one this summer, with Jeremy(Renner), yeah. He’s awesome, and you know, he’s one of my favorite actors and I believe him in that world. You know, when Paul and I talked about maybe doing one, years ago, where we pass it off to somebody so the franchise can continue with someone else, Renner was the first guy that we talked about.”

It’s a nice coincidence that Damon and Greengrass apparently had faith in Renner before he was even considered for the role of Aaron Cross in Bourne Legacy. Ultimately, the film will provide the Bourne franchise with fresh faces, a new (albeit familiar enough) story, and hopefully some fresh creative spin on the action, as envisioned by Tony Gilroy. Not a bad proposition.